MUNICH — The United States, Russia and other powers agreed to a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria’s civil war, to take place within the next week, and immediate humanitarian access to besieged areas, Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced here early Friday.

“It was unanimous,” Kerry said of a communique issued after hours of meetings among participants in a group of nations that have supported and armed one side or the other in the four-year war. “Everybody today agreed,” he said. But the proof of commitment will come only with implementation. “What we have here are words on paper,” Kerry said. “What we need to see in the next few days are actions on the ground.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the projected date for ending at least some of his country’s airstrikes in Syria is a week from Friday, but he emphasized that “terrorist” groups would continue to be targeted, including the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that is involved in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad. The group in some instances fights alongside rebel forces supported by the United States and its allies.

The determination of eligible targets and geographic areas is to be left up to a task force of nations, headed by Russia and the United States, that will adjudicate differences of opinion. It is expected but by no means guaranteed that signatories to the agreement will be able to persuade their proxies and allies on the ground, including Assad and the hundreds of opposition groups fighting against him, to honor the terms.

Kerry and Lavrov emphasized that the agreement is not perfect and will require the goodwill and determination of all involved.

Lavrov also described a “qualitative” change in U.S. military policy to cooperate with Russia in continuing the fight against the Islamic State. Until now, the Obama administration has declined to deal with Russia except to “deconflict” their airstrikes to prevent their aircraft from running into each other in Syria’s skies.

“The key thing is to build direct contacts, not only on procedures to avoid incidents but also cooperation between our militaries,” Lavrov said.

Kerry said there had been no change in policy, but he said humanitarian and other agreed-upon programs would require the ability “to talk about deployment of forces, the presence of people, who can go where, how they get there, and avoid conflict in ways that are effective” to implement the agreement.

Lavrov described the cessation of hostilities as the “first step” toward a cease-fire, a more formal legal construct that can involve the turning in of arms and demobilization of forces. Instead, he described the immediate goal as more akin to a truce.

The aim is that humanitarian relief begin as early as this weekend, with Russian airdrops to at least seven areas of Syria that cannot be easily reached by road. A second task force of countries, drawn from among the 17 that participated in the talks, will determine the “modalities” of allowing ground convoys of food and medicines to pass through government and opposition lines to reach dozens of other besieged communities.

Kerry and Lavrov acknowledged that they and other members of the group continue to disagree about many issues in Syria, including Assad’s future.

The Munich effort was seen as a last chance to stop carnage in Syria that has left hundreds of thousands dead and sent millions fleeing from the country. What was already a desperate situation in Syria has greatly worsened over the past few weeks, as massive Russian bombardment in and around the city of Aleppo has scattered opposition fighters and driven tens of thousands of civilians toward the barricaded Turkish border.

Participants said they had noted a new U.S. willingness to stand up to the Russians, who agreed in December to a U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire in conjunction with peace talks.

The Obama administration has been under pressure from its allies to stop the flow into Europe of what are now about 1 million refugees. Partners in the Middle East have also openly despaired of what they see as declining U.S. leadership in the region.

Beyond its recent appearance of allowing Russia to act with impunity, the administration has long resisted calls from regional partners to increase its relatively low level of military aid and training to opposition forces, even as President Obama insisted that Assad would have to step down. A failure of the Munich effort would have presented the administration with a decision on whether to reverse course and expand its assistance to the opposition.

Some diplomats here noted that the Russians may be more amenable now to an early cease-fire, since the airstrikes and Iranian-aided ground operations have achieved their goal of regaining control for Assad over much of the country’s western population centers. This month’s Russian bombing has driven opposition forces out of areas of Aleppo and the surrounding province that they had occupied almost since the civil war began in earnest four years ago.

“Everybody’s calculations have shifted” because of events of the past few weeks, one diplomat said. The diplomats spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.

Opposition leaders said as the talks progressed Thursday that they were optimistic after meeting with Kerry and others. “We’ll wait two days and see if all the promises they made are kept,” Salem al-Meslet, the spokesman for a negotiating team appointed by the Syrian opposition to open U.N.-sponsored talks with the government, said before the agreement was announced. “Hopefully, we’ll see something by Monday.”

U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said he anticipated an early resumption of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition. Meslet said the opposition would return to talks if the new plan is implemented. But, he said, “we have to see something — food [must] go to children who are starving to death. Then we’ll go sit at the same table” with the government.

“I can’t stop [Vladimir] Putin,” he said of the Russian president. “Can you say no to Putin?” he said, referring to the United States and its allies.

The initial session of the negotiations was suspended last week after the opposition protested the lack of humanitarian access to besieged areas as well as Russia’s stepped-up airstrikes near Aleppo.

The Munich meeting, the fourth the group of nations has held, was initially intended to bless and monitor peace talks that were supposed to start early this month. Instead, it turned into an emergency session to put the process back on track.

Although isolated, small-scale fighting is likely to continue, the deal would ideally stop the use of heavy weapons, including tanks and antitank missiles. The United States and its partners would continue their current level of equipping and training the opposition so as not to leave the rebels at a disadvantage if the cessation of hostilities collapses. Russia presumably would continue its support for the Syrian government.

Despite the diplomatic talks here, combat both real and verbal continued Thursday. Russia’s Defense Ministry was defiant about Moscow’s intervention in Syria, saying it would not yield to Western entreaties to stop an effort that has given Assad powerful momentum on the battlefield.

Western efforts at “political transitions” led to bloodshed and refugees, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters in Moscow. He gave no indication that Russia plans to stop its combat air missions anytime soon.

Konashenkov denied that Russia was bombing civilians, saying that “no matter how long one baits terrorists, they will not become opposition members.”

Responding to a charge Wednesday from Col. Steve Warren, the Baghdad-based spokesman for coalition operations in Iraq and Syria, that Russian planes had bombed two hospitals in Aleppo, Konashenkov said two U.S. planes were in fact responsible.

“There were no coalition airstrikes in or near Aleppo on Wednesday, Feb. 10,” Warren countered Thursday in a statement. “Any claim that the coalition had aircraft in the area is a fabrication.”

Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Griff Witte in Brussels and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

US, Russia and other powers agree on ‘cessation of hostilities’ in Syria – Washington Post

“We have taken total and complete control of the prison,” Flores said. “We are going to take the necessary action so that calm returns to this overcrowded place and these kinds of situations do not happen again.”

State and federal forces as well as relatives of inmates amassed outside the site. Frantic family members tearfully told CNN affiliate FOROtv that they were worried about loved ones inside.

Images from the CNN affiliate showed people pushing on gates outside the prison. Another group shoved at a line of police officers standing guard near the facility.

“I don’t know if my son is dead!” a woman screamed. “Please, help us. The director should come out and face us, and give us the names. “

“We don’t really know what’s happening,”another woman told reporters. She said her son managed to call her from inside the prison, recounting how once the riot started, he hid for safety in the women’s wing.

Another woman told reporters a similar story — of her son seeking shelter in the women’s wing.

“There is a riot. They want to kill us all. Come ask for me,” the woman said her son told her.

State officials released a list of 40 victims who died in riot, and said investigators were still working to identify others.

By Thursday night, family members had left the area surrounding the prison after authorities ended visiting hours with inmates inside. Federal police and Mexican military troops surrounded the facility.

The governor called the riot “unfortunate and painful.”

Past riots sprang from cartel rivalries

Overcrowding is a major problem in Mexican prisons, which have seen deadly riots and violence in the past.

At the same prison in Monterrey, three inmates were stabbed to death in February 2012.

That same month, 44 inmates were killed and 30 escaped in a riot at a prison in Apodaca, near Monterrey. Security officials blamed the violence on a fierce rivalry between drug cartels inside that prison.

In 2011, the head of security at the Topo Chico prison was found dead and mutilated. Authorities said that a note, presumably from a drug cartel, was left with the body.

“It seems like we haven’t learned our lesson,” said Martin Carlos Sanchez, who directs a prison reform and monitoring program.

For years, advocates had warned that the situation at the Topo Chico prison was out of control, Sanchez told CNN en Español’s “Conclusiones.”

“We think there should be stronger, more robust strategies, so we don’t reach this point, which is truly total abandonment,” he said. “These violent acts speak of the urgent need to do something in prisons.”

PAJU, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has cut off power and water supplies to a factory park in North Korea, officials said Friday, a day after the North deported all South Korean workers there and ordered a military takeover of the complex that had been the last major symbol of cooperation between the rivals. It is the latest in an escalating standoff over North Korea’s recent rocket launch that Seoul, Washington and their allies view as a banned test of missile technology. The North says its actions on the Kaesong complex were a response to Seoul’s earlier decision to suspend operations as punishment for the launch.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s sudden withdrawal from a factory park in North Korea is a severe blow for the South Korean businesses that populated it, but is unlikely to make much difference to the North’s decrepit economy despite being a stern diplomatic measure. Aiming to punish North Korea for a rocket launch on Sunday, South Korea’s government said earlier this week it will shut down the Kaesong industrial complex. It accused North Korea of using the cash it earns from South Korean involvement in the rare venture between the two Koreas to finance its weapons programs. Pyongyang responded Thursday by announcing a military takeover of the complex near the border of the two countries, ordering all South Koreans to leave, and seizing the possible bounty of equipment and assets left behind.

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea reacted quickly and sternly Thursday to South Korea’s announcement it will suspend operations at a jointly run factory complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone that is the last major cooperative project between the two countries. It’s always difficult to gauge the true intentions of Pyongyang’s secretive ruling regime, but here’s a look at what it might mean. ___ Q: What did North Korea say? A: It came out swinging. It condemned South Korean President Park Geun-hye as a “traitor for all times” and said the South’s decision to suspend operations at the Kaesong Industrial Zone marks the “end to the last lifeline of the north-south relations.” It said it will block cross-border transport to the zone from the South; put the area under military control; expel all South Koreans from the zone; freeze all assets of South Korean enterprises operating there; cut off two hotlines with the South; and remove all of its own workers from the zone.

TAINAN, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese leaders and relatives held a memorial service on Friday for victims of last weekend’s earthquake as the official death toll rose to 94. President Ma Ying-jeou and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen attended the ceremony, offering flowers and shaking hands with relatives and Buddhist monks before leaving without making any public remarks. Family members lit incense and bowed before the victims’ photographs, arranged in rows. Friday marks the seventh day since the earthquake and a day of special mourning, according to traditional Chinese funeral rituals. The death toll rose to 94 early Friday, according to Taiwan’s Interior Ministry, with as many as 41 people are still missing and presumed trapped under the rubble.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says a North Korea sanctions bill that won Senate approval is consistent with U.S. efforts to increase pressure on North Korea over its development of nuclear weapons. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes says that the administration has a process for reviewing such legislation but does not oppose the bill. A version of the legislation has already passed the House. Rhodes told a Washington think tank on Thursday that the administration and Congress are “in the same space” and agree on the need for increased sanctions. Republican and Democratic senators set aside their partisan differences Wednesday to unanimously the legislation aimed at cutting North Korea’s access to hard currency.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has expanded its fight against the Islamic State group in Afghanistan, launching 20 airstrikes in the eastern part of the country in the last three weeks, U.S. officials said Thursday. The strikes come in the wake of a decision by the Obama administration to give the Pentagon the authority to conduct airstrikes against IS in Afghanistan, as the militant group’s numbers there continue to grow. Army Brig. Gen. Wilson A. Shoffner told reporters that 1,000 to 3,000 Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan are trying to establish a base of operations in the rugged mountains of Nangahar Province.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Thursday it is urging China and Taiwan to maintain dialogue amid concern that the election of an independence-leaning party on the island could heighten tensions in one of Asia’s security hotspots. A House foreign affairs panel on Asia examined the implications for Washington of the January election that throws new uncertainty over the relationship between democratic Taiwan and the communist mainland, which claims the island as its own territory, to be recovered by force if necessary. The United States is Taiwan’s most important ally and source of defensive arms, but it has applauded the easing of cross-Strait relations under the outgoing Nationalist government, which fostered economic cooperation with China.

TOKYO (AP) — A married Japanese ruling party lawmaker resigned Friday for allegedly having an affair while publicly announcing he would seek to take paternity leave to promote women’s rights. Kensuke Miyazaki bowed repeatedly and apologized profusely at a news conference broadcast live on Japanese television. “I did something very cruel to my wife who just delivered a baby. I am in deep remorse,” he said, speaking with some difficulty as camera flashes lit up his face. “To those who took serious interest in the issue of men taking paternity leave, I deeply, deeply apologize,” he said. The 35-year-old lower house member from Kyoto prefecture had drawn both praise and criticism after saying he would take the rare step of taking time off work to help care for his child.

SYDNEY (AP) — Prosecutors dropped a charge against a 92-year-old retired surgeon on Friday that alleged he had smuggled 1 million Australian dollars ($700,000) in cocaine hidden on bars of soap into Sydney airport. Victor Twartz was due to appear in the New South Wales District Court in Sydney on a charge of importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, which carries a potential life sentence. But the Sydney resident did not appear and prosecutors told the judge that the charge had been dropped. No explanation was given. Twartz had been scheduled to stand trial later this month. Twartz had said he would fight the charge because criminals had tricked him into carrying 27 soap bars packed with 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) of cocaine when he returned to Australia from New Delhi on July 8, 2014.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is criticizing Cambodia’s government for threats against the political opposition as the Southeast Asian nation’s prime minister prepares to make his first official U.S. visit during 31 years in power. Prime Minister Hun Sen is set to attend a summit of the leaders of the U.S. and Southeast Asia in California next week. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes expressed concern Thursday over intimidation of opposition lawmakers in Cambodia in recent weeks, and against people planning to protest in the U.S. against Hun Sen’s visit. Human Rights Watch says Hun Sen and his supporters are telling Cambodian-American citizens that if they protest on U.S.

Seeking to derail North Korea’s drive for nuclear weapons, Republican and Democratic senators set aside their partisan differences Wednesday to unanimously pass legislation aimed at starving Pyongyang of the money it needs to build an atomic arsenal.

The Senate approved the sanctions bill 96-0 after lawmakers repeatedly denounced Pyongyang for flouting international law by pursuing nuclear weapons.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said for too long North Korea has been dismissed as a strange country run by irrational leaders. “It’s time to take North Koreaseriously,” Menendez said.

The Senate bill, authored by Menendez and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., targets North Korea’s ability to finance the development of miniaturized nuclear warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over the next five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance programs.

The legislation comes in the wake of Pyongyang’s recent satellite launch and technical advances that U.S. intelligence agencies said the reclusive Asian nation is making in its nuclear weapons program.

Gardner said the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea has failed. “The situation in the Korea peninsula is at its most unstable point since the armistice,” said Gardner, referring to the 1953 agreement to end the Korean War.

The House overwhelmingly approved North Korean sanctions legislation last month. While there are differences in the two bills, Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he does not expect any difficulty in producing a final measure.

The House sent the Senate a bill that was very strong and “we’ve been able to improve it,” said Corker, a Tennessee Republican. “I think they’ll be happy with those improvements.”

GOP senators and presidential candidates Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida rushed back from the campaign to vote, but one presidential hopeful didn’t make it. Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont missed the vote. He issued a statement expressing his support for the legislation.

North Korea on Sunday launched a long-range rocket carrying an Earth observation satellite into space. The launch, which came about a month after the country’s fourth nuclear test, was quickly condemned by world leaders as a potential threat to regional and global security.

Washington, Seoul and others consider the launch a banned test of missile technology. That assessment is based on Pyongyang’s efforts to manufacture nuclear-tipped missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland; the technology used to launch a rocket carrying a satellite into space can be applied to fire a long-range missile.

In the annual assessment of global threats delivered to Congress on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said North Korea has expanded a uranium enrichment facility and restarted a plutonium reactor that could start recovering material for nuclear weapons in weeks or months.

Both findings will deepen concern that North Korea is not only making technical advances in its nuclear weapons program, but is working to expand what is thought to be a small nuclear arsenal. U.S.-based experts have estimated that North Korea may have about 10 bombs, but that could grow to between 20 and 100 by 2020.

Clapper said Pyongyang has not flight-tested a long-range, nuclear-armed missile but is committed to its development.

North Korea already faces wide-ranging sanctions from the United States and under existing U.N. resolutions is prohibited from trading in weapons and importing luxury goods.

The new legislation seeks additional sanctions — both mandatory and at the discretion of the president — against the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and those who assist it.

It would require the investigation and punishment of those who knowingly import into North Korea any goods or technology related to weapons of mass destruction; those who engage in human rights abuses, money laundering and counterfeiting that supports the Kim regime; and those who engage in “cyber-terrorism.”

The bill also bans foreign assistance to any country that provides lethal military equipment to North Korea, and targets Pyongyang’s trade in key industrial commodities.

The White House director for Asian affairs, Daniel Kritenbrink, told reporters Wednesday that discussions are continuing at the U.N. Security Council to impose new sanctions on North Korea, and the U.S. is considering “other unilateral measures.” He did not elaborate on what those measures might be.

The principal action the Obama administration has taken to date in response to the nuclear and rocket tests has been to start discussions with close ally SouthKorea on deploying a new missile defense system.

1. Protect Russia’s interests in Syria

MUST WATCH

Russia has significant economic and military interests in Syria, such as a Mediterranean naval base at Tartus, that it is determined to keep. Russia has had a naval facility in Tartus since Soviet times, and although it is has been more of a repair yard and warship supply station, consisting of a “single pier,” it is Russia’s only base in the Mediterranean. The very real possibility of Assad’s regime collapsing is likely to have been the primary reason the Kremlin decided to deploy its powerful air force last September.

Syria under Assad is seen by the Kremlin as a key pillar of its strategic influence in the Middle East and Moscow is extremely reluctant to let it go.

3. Fight Islamist groups

Kremlin concerns about the spread of Islamist violence are genuine. Russia has been the target of repeated brutal terrorist attacks carried out by jihadist rebels. Islamist rebels from the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have been fighting for independence since the 1990s, although a brutal six-year campaign by Moscow silenced much opposition and the autonomous region is now firmly under the control of Russian-appointed leader Ramzan Kadyrov. But separatist groups do continue to inflict violence on Russia, like the deadly 2014 bombings in Volvograd.

Russia fears an ISIS victory in Syria would have reverberations at home, as some of the top military commanders of ISIS are Russian speakers of Chechen origin.

More recently, the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula — for which ISIS claimed responsibility, perhaps in retaliation for Russia’s support of the Assad government in Syria — has only made Moscow more alarmed at the spread of groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliates.

It has called for an international coalition to destroy them.

4. Bolster Putin’s support at home

MUST WATCH

Low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine have plunged Russia’s economy into crisis. It shrank by 3.7% in 2015, making it one of the 10 worst-performing emerging markets in the world, the International Monetary Fund calculated. The value of the Russian ruble fell to a record low against the dollar, and that effectively made millions of Russians poorer than they used to be.

President Putin’s domestic popular support has remained strong, but with no end in sight to the economic pain, the Kremlin desperately needs a distraction. A Syrian war, as long as Russian casualties remain low, is a way of rallying support and boosting national pride.

5. Sell Arms

From its top-of-the-range Su-35 air superiority combat jets to its brand-new ship-launched Kalibr cruise missiles, Syria provides Russia with a dramatic backdrop to promote its most high-tech weaponry. Russia is already one of the world’s biggest arms producers. Sales to nations like China and India — which are carefully watching the Russian impact on the Syrian war — could now see a significant upswing.

TAINAN, Taiwan — At least four people, including an 8-year-old girl, were rescued Monday from a high-rise Taiwanese apartment building toppled by a powerful quake two days earlier, as frustration grew among families waiting for searchers to reach their buried loved ones.

More than 100 people are believed to still be under the debris in a disaster that struck during the most important family holiday in the Chinese calendar – the Lunar New Year.

Saturday’s quake killed at least 38 people in Tainan city in southern Taiwan, all but two of them in the collapse of the 17-story building. Even though the 6.4-magnitude quake was shallow, few buildings were reported to have been damaged, which experts said was because Taiwan’s building standards are high.

Authorities have managed to rescue more than 170 people – the vast majority in the immediate hours after the quake — from the folded building using information about the building layout and the possible location of those trapped.

Five survivors were believed to have been pulled out on Sunday, and at least four on Monday. One of them, Tsao Wei-ling, called out “Here I am” as rescuers dug through to find her, Taiwan’s Eastern Broadcasting Corp. reported.

She was found under the body of her husband, who had shielded her from a collapsed beam, the government-run Central News Agency reported. Tsao’s husband and 2-year-son were found dead, and five other members of the family remained unaccounted for, it said.

Teams also rescued on Monday a 42-year-old man from the building, and, later, an 8-year-old girl, who had been trapped for more than 61 hours.

“She is awake, but looks dehydrated, lost some temperature but she’s awake and her blood pressure is OK,” he said. “I asked her if there’s anything wrong with her body. She shook her head.”

Shortly afterward, rescue workers also pulled out a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman, identified as Chen Mei-jih, who had been trapped on what was the building’s fifth floor.

Family members of the missing flooded into the information center in search of their loved ones or to wait anxiously.

Tensions rose as some relatives, losing patience, demanded to speak to rescue workers directly to get the latest information.

A couple sitting in a small room where officials release information said they had heard no news about their daughter-in-law and two young grandsons.

“Does that mean we are here to wait for bodies?” grandfather Liu Meng-hsun cried out angrily.

Outside, a woman stood at the edge of the rubble shouting, “Your grandma is here!” Rescuers had detected life within the area where the 16th-floor apartment of her son and his family was thought to be, and were said to have heard the sound of a child.

Her son, surnamed Wu, got out of the building soon after the quake, but his wife and their 4-year-old girl remained trapped, according to volunteers assisting the family.

Earthquakes rattle Taiwan frequently. Most are minor and cause little or no damage, though a magnitude-7.6 quake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.

The spectacular fall of the high-rise, built in 1989, raised questions about whether its construction had been shoddy. The government says it will investigate whether the developer cut corners.

Huang Jia-rui, a structural engineer in Tainan, said Taiwan’s buildings aren’t as quake-proof as Japan’s, which is a leader in engineering quake-proof structures, but the island is catching up.

The extended Lunar New Year holiday officially started Monday, but celebrations were subdued and both President Ma Ying-jeou and President-elect Tsai Ing-wen canceled the traditional handing out of envelopes of cash in their hometowns.

GENEVA Detainees held by the Syrian government are being killed on a massive scale amounting to a state policy of “extermination” of the civilian population, a crime against humanity, United Nations investigators said on Monday.

The U.N. commission of inquiry called on the Security Council to impose “targeted sanctions” on high-ranking Syrian civilian and military officials responsible for or complicit in deaths, torture and disappearances in custody, but stopped short of naming the suspects.

The independent experts said they had also documented mass executions and torture of prisoners by two jihadi groups, the Nusra Front and Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. These constituted war crimes and in the case of Islamic State also crimes against humanity, it said.

The report, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention”, covers March 10, 2011 to November 30, 2015. It is based on interviews with 621 survivors and witnesses and evidence gathered by the team led by chairman Paulo Pinheiro.

“Over the past four and a half years, thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of warring parties,” the Commission of Inquiry on Syria said.

The U.N. criticism of the Damascus government comes at a time when its forces have been advancing with the aid of Russian air strikes. A Moscow-backed government assault near the city of Aleppo this month marks one of the biggest momentum shifts in the five year war and helped torpedo peace talks last week.

Pinheiro, noting that the victims were mostly civilian men, told a news briefing: “Never in these five years these facilities that are described in our report have been visited and we have repeatedly asked the government to do so.”

There was no immediate response by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has rejected previous reports.

“Prison officials, their superiors throughout the hierarchy, high-ranking officials in military hospitals and the military police corps as well as government were aware that deaths on a massive scale were occurring,” Pinheiro said.

“Thus we concluded there were ‘reasonable grounds’ – that is (the threshold) that we apply – to believe that the conduct described amounts to extermination as a crime against humanity.”

NAMES KEPT IN U.N. SAFE

Tens of thousands of detainees are held by the government atany one time, and thousands more have “disappeared” after arrest by state forces or gone missing after abduction by armed groups, the report said.

Through mass arrests and killing of civilians, including by starvation and denial of medical treatment, state forces have “engaged in the multiple commissions of crimes, amounting to a systematic and widespread attack against a civilian population”.

There were reasonable grounds to believe that “high-ranking officers”, including the heads of branches and directorates commanding the detention facilities and military police, as well as their civilian superiors, knew of the deaths and of bodies buried anonymously in mass graves.

They are thus “individually criminally liable”, the investigators said, calling again for Syria to be referred to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a decision that only the Security Council can take.

“It depends on the political will of states. Apparently for Syria now, there is none – there is total impunity, unfortunately,” said panel member Carla del Ponte.

“We are still waiting for a green light for international justice,” she said.

“The Security Council doesn’t do anything and can’t do anything because of the veto”, she added, a reference to Russia, Assad’s ally, which has repeatedly used its power as a permanent Council member to block resolutions against Damascus.

Over the past four years, the investigators have drawn up a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva. Pinheiro said “we have included new names” but gave no details.

Del Ponte disclosed that the U.N. investigators have provided judicial assistance to various authorities in response to 15 requests for information on foreign fighters in Syria.

She declined to identify the countries involved, but later told Reuters: “These are low-level and middle-level perpetrators because they are foreign fighters, not high-ranking.”

The Nusra Front, which is allied to al Qaeda, and Islamic State, which has proclaimed a “caliphate” in swathes of Syria and Iraq, have committed mass executions of captured government soldiers and subjected civilians to “illicit trials” by Sharia courts which ordered death sentences, the report said.

“Due to their exclusive control of large territories and its centralised command and control structure the so-called ISIS established detention facilities as far as we know are in Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Aleppo. Serious violations were documented in these facilities, including torture and mass executions,” Pinheiro said.

“Accountability for these and other crimes must form part of any political solution,” the investigators said, five days after U.N.-sponsored peace talks were suspended without any result.

DEAD BODIES

Raneem Matouq, daughter of prominent lawyer Khalil Matouq missing since Oct 2012, said she had been held for two months in 2014 at Military Security Damascus Branch 227 after being arrested for her own “peaceful activism” while a student.

Inmates at the detention facility, estimated to hold several thousand, have died as a result of torture, disease and appalling prison conditions, including chronic lack of food, according to the U.N. report.

“I was with 10 other girls in a room one-and-a-half metres long by two metres long. For guys it was a room the same scale but they had 30-40 men, with dead bodies,” Matouq told Reuters on a visit to Geneva last week with Amnesty International.

“It was full of insects, we were sleeping on the floor, there was no toilet,” she said. “We were allowed to go to the toilet three times a day, we called it ‘the picnic’ because we could walk outside.

“Sometimes we would find dead bodies inside the toilet (area). It was so horrible, they were all men.”

BANGALORE, India – A leopard wandered into a school in southern India and injured three people as it tried to escape, officials said.

Onlookers including TV news crews watched the chase, which lasted several hours until forest workers shot the big cat with a tranquilizer dart on Sunday afternoon, according to Press Trust of India news agency.

The agency quoted school officials as saying the leopard was first seen on closed-circuit TV before dawn inside the private Vibgyor School in Bangalore, and then disappeared into some surrounding bushes.

The big cat later scaled a wall to re-enter the school grounds. It attacked and injured three people including a veterinarian and a man who was trying to climb over a gate to get away, the agency reported. Police said the three are being treated in a hospital.

Wildlife in India is increasingly coming into contact with human populations, causing scenes like the one at the school.